A gentle breeze caressed Wilfreda's face as she listened to the ocean. It was heaven to hear only the soothing sound of waves and not the voices of too many people crowded onto a small ship. She had not realized before what a gift it was to simply be alone. No one to chastise you for being unladylike or for speaking out of turn. Her paradise was shattered by the sound of her mother's voice.
Winfreda opened her eyes to see her mother standing before her. Dahlia was not beautiful but there was something in her that demanded the same things as beauty: admiration, attention and respect. Winfreda had tried to replicate that same allusive quality her mother had but she had failed. Eventually, Winfreda began to believe she could never have that unnamed quality and that it was something only someone quiet and shy like her mother could have. "Winfreda, do you know why your father and I decided to come with the exiled?" Her mother asked in her usual quiet way. Her blue eyes watching Winfreda with concern and compassion. Winfreda did know why they had come. Her father had risked all to come here in the hopes that his daughter could seduce the ex-prince of Emberlin and the current King of whatever-they-were-calling -this-place. Frankly, Winfreda doubted she could win the heart of the king for she was the opposite of what was concerned beauty. She had dark curly brown hair instead of straight blonde hair and green eyes instead of blue eyes. Also she was not graceful but wild. She longed to run into the ocean and swim away to a distant land where she would not be looked down on because of her gender. But that was impossible.
"We left because father wants me to marry the prince and failing that become his mistress." She answered boldly. She imagined her mother would scold her for saying something so unladylike or to lie and say her father had no intention of her becoming a mistress. Instead her mother hugged her tightly without saying anything. In that one action Winfreda knew it was not her imagination that made her think her father wanted her to share the King's bed whether as his wife or as a ruined woman just as long as she was there to gain riches for her family.
She wanted to go into the ocean and flee to a distant land where she as a person was appreciated not as an object to be used for others benefits. But she had already gone on a ship that carried her to a distant land with the promise of a better future but the future before her was the same future as the one in Emberlin. A marriage of convenience not love. Filled with years of bearing children and if she was lucky only one child would die before its time. This new unnamed country promise of change was hallow except for the men. In that way this country was exactly the same as the old. Men had endless choices and futures while women had only two: marry or become a nun.
"We left because father wants me to marry the prince and failing that become his mistress." She answered boldly. She imagined her mother would scold her for saying something so unladylike or to lie and say her father had no intention of her becoming a mistress. Instead her mother hugged her tightly without saying anything. In that one action Winfreda knew it was not her imagination that made her think her father wanted her to share the King's bed whether as his wife or as a ruined woman just as long as she was there to gain riches for her family.
She wanted to go into the ocean and flee to a distant land where she as a person was appreciated not as an object to be used for others benefits. But she had already gone on a ship that carried her to a distant land with the promise of a better future but the future before her was the same future as the one in Emberlin. A marriage of convenience not love. Filled with years of bearing children and if she was lucky only one child would die before its time. This new unnamed country promise of change was hallow except for the men. In that way this country was exactly the same as the old. Men had endless choices and futures while women had only two: marry or become a nun.
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